Been there, done that, got the post-card

A while ago I was surfing the webs and found the wikipedia article on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. I had no idea that these existed or why, but immediately thought they were a pretty good idea. After looking at the list for a while I came up with two conclusions.

1.) I should visit as many of these as possible in my life time
2.) There are 3 within 2 hours drive of my apartment (until I move, of course)

It just makes good sense. From the Wikipedia article “The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.” So, if I’m going to go visit a provincial park, which I like to do, why not visit the ones that fit that definition, instead of the normal ones that are just mind-blowingly pretty. A park that is beautiful AND culturally significant? It’s like walking on the Mona Lisa’s face. Amazing.

To catalog my quest to visit these sites I’ve decided to collect a post-card from each site. Post-cards are great because the pictures were always taken on the most beautiful of days, so even if I visit on a rainy day I get a perfect image to take home and they are cheap, which is a word I would use to describe myself if I was trying to avoid describing myself as broke.

There is a slight problem in that I’ve already visited a few sites, namely in Greece. However, while I remember going I don’t remember being as impressed as I would be now that I’ve had two semesters of Art History. So those are going to be do-overs.

So, realising I had this amazing opportunity of living so close to so many sites but for only a few more weeks I decided to act! Hence, my trip to Dinosaur Provincial Park. (The first thing I learned on this trip was that there is no ‘h’ in the word “Provincial”)

The drive out was pretty laid back. Prarie driving is kind of weird, you could be driving through anywhere: Ohio, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Iowa, Delta. It also meets this strange paradox of being entertaining and boring. There’s nothing to really look at, but because of that you (as the driver) can actually take time to look around.

After taking a bunch of seemingly random turns, and wondering how I still had a cell-phone signal, I all of a sudden came upon a gigantic gorge. Gigantic. “Oh.”

This is where dinosaurs went to die. Luckily for us, this is also where rivers went to run. As the Red Deer river runs through the park, it erodes the soil and exposes fossils. Lots of fossils. 500 specimens covering 39 species. Including 5 different Dromaesauridae species, including two new and unknown species. In pop culture terms these are “raptors”.

Q: What’s scarier than a raptor?
A: A raptor + the unknown.

The park was amazing, but, some what bitter-sweetly most of it is closed to the public. Actually, more sweetly than bitter. Protect the place damn-it! Also, this gives me a great excuse not to have hiked much of the park. I love hiking and all, but let me tell you, the mosquitos out there! Holy shit. Jurassic Park is so much more believable after getting bitten forty times per minute. If I was a dinosaur getting bitten that often I probably would’ve jumped in a big mud puddle too.

I went to the Drumheller Field Museum to collect my post card. I also decided to wander about their exhibits. I may be broke, but $3 is totally worth it to support the conservation of the park. Infact, $3 is worth it just to take pictures of the raptors and make all the stupid comments I attached to their pictures on my facebook album.

While I was lining up to pay my entry fee, there was a family ahead of me in line. The young boy of about 8, looked like he was really into the whole dinosaur thing. With a completely serious look on his face, he asked the girl at the cash register about the skeleton hanging above our heads:

Boy: How do they know it’s a Gorgosaurus and not an Albertosaurus or even just a young Albertosaurus
Girl at cash register: Hahaha... That’s a great question, in fact our palentologists can’t even decide on that. They’re not sure if Gorgosaurus is even it’s own species or if they’re all just young Albertosaurus’.
Boy: *walks away shaking his head with a really disappointed look on his face*

Science, it works, but some times it takes a while to figure out.

The trip around the field museum motivated me to make the drive to Drumheller and visit the real museum. The Royal Tyrell Museum is about 2 hours away from the park and still an hour and half away from Calgary. Needless to say, I put some clicks on the Fit.

Drumheller seems to have taken the dinosaur thing and run with it. There are dinosaurs every where. Including the worlds largest dinosaur, a gigantic model of a Tyrannosaurus. You can climb the T-Rex and view the town from it’s open mouth. I opted for a shot from my rolled down car window.

$10 more to get into the real museum, but again, totally worth it. After a few rooms of “whatever” exhibits you get to a room which is exactly what you (and by you, I mean I) expect. A dark room with exhibits all around the perimeter, in the center a full Tyrannosaurus skeleton ready to bite your head off. The surrounding artifacts all seemed to be either T-Rex or Raptor related. Yes, this is exactly what I had come to see.

The museum also had a few special exhibits going on. One on Darwin and Evolution, and the other on the Burgess Shale.

One of the great perspectives I got from living in Ohio for seven years was that not everyone believes in evolution. Beliefs to me are for Santa, you believe for a while, then you grow up and understand the truth. Apparently this isn’t the case for other parts of the world.

What I noticed in all the exhibits, but obviously more strongly at the Burgess Shale and the Darwin exhibits is that they discussed evolution as a fact. As an assumption you made before you came to the museum. It was axiomatic. It was refreshing.

These two exhibits didn’t make much for taking pictures, so I didn’t.

After them it was the standard bones-in-poses. I took lots of pictures, highlights are in my facebook album.

All together it was a great day. A literally jaw dropping view of the badlands and good science to mentally chew over. Perfect.

Drenched

I just got back from working a 4 hour shift at Drenched Fest. It wasn't nearly as awesome as the website makes it look due to the Vancouver style rain we've had for the past few days. Also, the bands don't start until Thursday so it was just water skiing.

Or so I was told. My job was to sit out by the entrance and ... I don't know. Answer questions if people had them?

"Does this road with the sign that says 'Event Parking' lead to the parking lot?" "...yes"

The first hour or so was interesting. I've made a goal for myself to see how long I can go without wearing pants (uniforms and pajamas don't count) so I left the house this morning in shorts. I didn't know I'd be standing in the rain all day, and boy was it cold.

After an hour of that I hitched a ride to the parking lot from a passing school bus driven by a recent immigrant from England. Picked up my car and drove out to where we'd been standing. We then sat in my car on the side of the road for the last few hours and did as close to nothing as has ever been done.